Remediation of Dwellings Damaged by the Use of Defective Concrete Blocks (Amendment) Bill 2025: Committee and Remaining Stages Dail Éireann — 2025-12-10 ============================================================ Richard O'Donoghue (II), Limerick County As other speakers said, this has not been costed since 2022. I will give the Minister a small few facts and it will not cost the State anything. I know the funds myself on a year-to-year basis for building costs. In 2021, the average cost of building a 2,000 sq. ft house was €120 per sq. ft on a greenfield site with a builder's finish. It cost €240,000 in 2021 with VAT of €32,400 on top that. In 2023, it was €180 per sq. ft. The same house went from €240,000 to €360,000 and the VAT was €48,600. In 2024, it was up to €200 per sq. ft - the same house with nothing extra. It cost €400,000 in 2024 and €54,000 VAT. If someone takes on a Government contract tomorrow morning, built into that contract, if the project goes over due to inflation over a certain percentage, is the adding on to the contract once the engineers can prove the material has moved. I said this in the Dáil last week and read out the letter, and it is ironic, that the same umbrella group from which the concrete products came - some, not all of its companies - sent a message through all their companies around Ireland that there would be an 8% increase in concrete products across the board. It was not one company saying it, it was the umbrella group sending it out through all its companies and the Government announced a 10% increase in the building. It has come out with 8% on concrete products alone. That is on top of what I am talking about here. I have been talking about greenfield sties. We now have to look at dismantling houses and getting rid of the material environmentally and with the proper certification. The costs are astronomical. Another €20 or €30 per sq. ft can be added to that and that is based on 2024 prices. We are talking about people who are short of money. A small thing that could go towards it, for the costing of the house, would be a VAT exemption. Why not? Based on 2024 prices, that would give them an extra €54,000 on a house towards the money they cannot raise. The Government could also, based on the Government doing its own contracts, fund it itself. The Government is going to give them the money in the first place, so why not fund it itself based on the engineers' reports? People would then not have to try to raise €200,000, €300,000 or €400,000 to rebuild a house or pay the VAT rate. Based on 2025 costings, taking in the remedial work that has to be done outside of the scope of works, the VAT is probably €70,000 based on a 2,000 sq. ft house. That €70,000 could go towards the rebuilding of their house if they get the costings. That would go some way to addressing inflation of costs. There is a 5% levy on all concrete products that was brought in. The same companies that were the problem announced an 8% increase this month. I am told it is coming in from 1 January. That same company in the past two years has given a 34% increase on all concrete products and the Government is charging a 5% levy on top of that. When will a regulation be put in place to tackle the elephant in the room? There are people who built their houses and got HomeBond and all these other certifications for their houses which are now falling down around them and the quarries that caused the problem are putting up their prices under an umbrella group. People trying to build houses are getting a 5% levy on all concrete products and everyone in the country building today is paying for the mistakes that were not regulated at the time. For somebody getting their house costed at the moment, based on today's prices, the VAT could help that burden. That is a solution for part of the problem. The other part of the problem is the Government is paying this as 100% redress, as the Minister said. Why does it not fund the people and give bank guarantees to them in the same way as for anyone building a new house today? Why does it not give people their payments based on the building as it goes on? If a person has to come up with a small bit of money, they can try to fundraise themselves. That, to me, is a solution. Why would the Minister charge tax on redress of 100%? Addressing this is within his remit. If I am pricing a project, it is based on a period of three months. How long is it going to take for the system to come into place and how long is it going to take for people to qualify? By the time the Minister moves the goalposts, prices will have gone up again. Is there not something to be said for index-linking based on the cost of prices going up now and on current inflation costs, as shown by economists? All of this is at the Minister’s fingertips. I have to cost daily, so why can the Minister not do so? Where there are Government contracts, rising costs are built in. Therefore, why can this not be done for everyone else? I want the Minister to exempt the tax people are supposed to pay where there is 100% redress. This will go some way towards paying for the houses that need to be rebuilt. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-12-10/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:27+00:00 Sitting date: 2025-12-10